This week, ending in July 02 2015:
Today's thread is for open discussion of:
History in the academy
Historiographical disputes, debates and rivalries
Implications of historical theory both abstractly and in application
Philosophy of history
And so on
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters like those above, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
Writing history is really hard, because interrelated developments don't happen in a nice, linear, easily-explained fashion. In other news, I'm seriously reconsidering the order of the chapters in my dissertation.
I have been seeing a lot of arguments between people on Reddit about Stalin and whether he was responsible for any atrocities during his time as the leader of the USSR. Does anyone know if there are disputes like this in academia? I have read some of Robert Conquest's work about Stalin and have done some research on nationalities policy under Stalin and thought that it wasn't that controversial that he did some bad things, but I have seen people dismiss Conquest outright on Reddit.